Speeding up your Torrents

Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2011 1:44 am

SPEEDING UP YOUR TORRENTS

Every day we see many users asking for seeds as their downloads are too slow or not connecting at all. The main issue is not for lack of seeds, but it could be a myriad of issues ranging from internet throttling, closed ports or a simple closed firewall. This tutorial will guide you to finding what the fault is and opening up a port to get the full potential of what you pay your internet provider for.

1….
Stop all downloads or just close out your torrent client and check your actual internet speed HERE with speed test. You should know what package you have from your internet provider and compare the speed with what package you are paying for. If it is slow and incorrect, check the time of day. It could be a peak period, bad connection or throttling (will get into that later). But a simple fix, reboot your computer and router, sometimes this will help and then run the speed test again. It should look like this....

If it speeds up to where it should be, then you should be fine. If not, contact your ISP and ask why you are not getting the speeds you are paying for. It may be a line problem or something else on their end.

2….
Check to see if your ISP is throttling or shaping your traffic. Check this list HERE for bad ISP’s known for causing problems with bittorrent traffic, online gaming and other P2P traffic. If your ISP is NOT on the list you can still check if they are shaping your traffic with Glasnost HERE . It is a online test that enables you to check whether traffic from your applications is being rate-limited (i.e., throttled) or blocked. Another good read is HERE about throttling.
Sometimes when you go over your allocated bandwidth some ISP’s will choke or throttle your internet as well, check with your ISP if they have done that, or find out how much bandwidth you have used.

3….
Another reason for not connecting to seeds would be that you have a bad torrent client. Bad clients or “cheater” clients are banned on many trackers, public and private due to sending bad or false data. Many users also ban them from connecting to their own torrent clients, therefore if you have a bad client you will never connect to a seed or tracker. A more comprehensive rundown on bad clients, why they are bad and how to ban them is HERE

4….
Now that we have determined if there is not an issue with your ISP or a bad client, we now can look at your torrent client and make sure it is set up properly. Many users recommend different clients, the most common one here is utorrent. A complete setup guide for utorrent can be found HERE .

5….
Firewalls…
Usually when you install a torrent program it will have an option to make an exception in the firewall of your operating system, check it. If it does not you have to add it in manually.

For windows
Start/control panel/system and security/Windows Firewall/Allow a program through windows firewall and add it that way

For firewalls on routers you have to log into your router and sort it out that way, seeing as there is hundreds of different routers, use your manual or visit the proprietary site of the make of your router.

To Find the default gateway to your router, as most are different follow this to get it

1. Click start>accessories>command prompt

2. Type "ipconfig /all" without the quotations

3. Find where it says default gateway and type it in your address bar of your internet. It should be something like 192.168.1.1 and that will bring up your routers main page.

Another way to access your routers page is

Start\Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network and Sharing Center

You will see your network layout. Starting with your computer then the gateway which will be your network or home followed by the internet. Click on the network and it will bring up a list of devices connected to it, right click in the gateway or router icon and in the popup click the view device webpage.

If you have never logged into your router before, most have a default user name and password, you can find that HERE or in your user manual. If this does not work, the person who set up the router changed it.

DO NOT ASK HOW TO CRACK OR HACK A PASSWORDED ROUTER… YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED…

Lastly…

Testing and opening up a port.

If your utorrent looks like this. It may be a closed port

You can test your port HERE to see if it is open. Just specify which port you have set on your torrent client. You can also test to see if your ports are open using utorrent as well. Under options/utorrent setup guide and run the test. If it is closed you will need to open it.

NEVER SET YOUR PORTS TO RANDOM .. unless you are on a very open network… otherwise you will have to open a port every time you start your torrent client.

There is a few different ways you can open a port. The two main ways are to do it manually or do it using a program called Simple Port Forwarding.

MANUALLY
Not for the average noob. But it is a good learning tool to do it yourself. If you do it once for one program you can do it for a bunch of them and gaming consoles such as the XBOX 360 and PS3

Go to Portforward.com HERE and find your router on the list. Once you have done that skip the adverts and then find the program you want to allow thru the port. Before you forward your ports you need to find out what ports what your torrent client is using .
Here is a brief walkthrough on how to do that. Open up utorrent Click Options in the menu at the top of your screen. In the list that drops down click Preferences.

Click Connections on the left hand side of the Utorrent program. You should now see the menu shown in the screenshot above. Make sure the Enable UPnP box is unchecked. The number in the Port Used for Incoming Connections box contains the port you need to forward. You can change the port number, if you want to. But make sure it is the same one you input into your router otherwise this whole thing is pointless.Now follow the rest of the instructions on Portforward.com for your router and your set

SIMPLE PORT FORWARDING

Grab Simple Port Forwarding HERE and install the free version. The pro version is good too and adds everything you need in a few steps, as well as setting your local IP to a static IP and adding a port in the windows firewall, but the free version does the same thing, except you have to do a few steps manually.

Once you have it installed open it up and you will see this

It will be all blank when you first run it as you have not added any ports yet. I will use the port 12345 an example and it is highlighted.

Enter your router name/brand, it will automatically add your routers IP. You have to add the username and password yourself, check above to find it.

Click on file tab then add port/s

You will now see this.

This is for the pro version, you can add utorrent that way and your done. But for the free version click the Add Custom tab

Enter the information in the blanks and click the add. It will appear on the main program.

if you want to add more for other things at the same time just follow the same process and change the name of the application or game console. Now just close out the add window and your stuff will be added to the window

Now just click the update router at the bottom right. It will go through the process of adding your ports to your router.

Do the port tests again

you will see.

And

Now your speeds should be where they are supposed to be. You cannot change router ports on University or College routers. You would need the password to do that and it will not be the default settings. I would not try to or recommend doing it as it may jeopardize your education as a result of a ban of your computer on the schools network and if they catch you, you may be expelled depending on your schools policy regarding modifying network tools.

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 8:19 pm

new sticky Wink

Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 8:28 pm

Nice sticky Schlomo Smile

I think you didn't mention, that after all this is done, if the speeds are still slow, then patience is a virtue that some people need to consider gaining Rolling Eyes

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 12:48 am

nah... you cant fix stupid Laughing

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 12:55 am

You have been busy toaster..... great guide/sticky.
As for fixing stoopid..... there is always the toilet where they can play water closet tennis.
Look to the left wall and then look to the right wall and repeat.
Could keep em busy for hours.

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 8:45 am

What a great sticky Very Happy

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 10:11 am

schlomo72 wrote:

nah... you cant fix stupid Laughing

Don't say that, I've been working on a beer cure for years Razz

nice sticky Wink

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 10:15 am

Watch the double posting please Mr Toaster Wink

...............

................ but yep, tis a goodie

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 1:59 pm

Congrats from me as well bud (dezzie thinks the toaster has too much time on his hands) Laughing

Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:56 pm

Aaah, full of rich, sticky goodness. Very nice guide schlomo Cool

Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2011 8:01 am

All the links you need to test are in this sticky... Good stuff. Thanks

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 6:35 am

Someone told me that seeding is not safe. Is it true?

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2012 6:42 am

robinmillford wrote:

Someone told me that seeding is not safe. Is it true?

Nothing is safe.....
Seriously...... downloading a copyrighted file is for most countries an illegal act. Some countries allow it if it is found online but they prohibit the sharing of the file you find with others.
However not seeding and just leeching is a personal but imo bad choice.....
If they want to get you for copyrighted iles they will seeding or not seeding.
However seeding itself is not illegal and a much needed aspect of the P2P system. If I make music and release it for free and everyone takes it but no one seeds it then my attitude will turn to one of "ungrateful buzzards".

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 10:57 am

Great sticky, thanks.

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:21 pm

omg...awesome sticky. even i managed to do it! two green ticks on the test for first time ever! isohunt rocks....thanks a lot schlomo